red shift

To start with, I have no idea why I am thinking about physics right now. Thinking about a title for a post about changing style, red shift was the first thing which popped into my head. I suppose it only serves to illustrate how I, as a person, am definitely different to my former physics-abhorring self.

Today I got a haircut. As my blog records inform me, the first haircut in 13 months. Nothing drastic; there is very little I can do with my hair if I want to maintain any semblance of control over it without having to straighten, blow-dry or otherwise treat it to within an inch of its life. I am not exaggerating. The woman who cut my hair said that if I want to do anything with it apart from what I normally do, she suggests getting a Keratin treatment first (costing upwards of £200, although mine would be around £300, and according to this Google search link is potentially fatal...).

Anyway, although it was not a drastic cut, my hair now feels much healthier and overall less disgusting. This was the first step I decided to take after glancing at myself in the mirror on Thursday at work. I am now a lot happier with my feelings towards my body as a whole, thanks to some well-advised make-up/eyebrow-plucking and exercise. But as I found my eyes defocusing from my actual self for the first time, I noticed the frizzy mess that was my hair. Quickly tying it back into a prim and proper bun, securing it with twenty clips, my eyes travelled down. What was I thinking pairing that cardigan with that skirt, with that shirt??

I remembered how that morning, in a scramble to leave the house on time, I had had no time to wash or even arrange my hair. Stepping out of the door, it was colder than I thought and went for the first option which would not interfere with the line of my puffed sleeves, without a thought for how it clashed horribly with the skirt, in colour and style.

I realised that now, as I spend more time on grooming and exercising and working, everything else about my style is slowly descending into scruffiness. Yesterday, the alarm woke me up 20 minutes late and I spent the next half an hour making and eating porridge for myself instead of getting dressed. I changed into my outfit five minutes before running out the door, an outfit which I hated for the rest of the day as well as the evening I spent in it.

Not wearing the perfect outfit every day is not exactly the worst crime, I know, but I don't like it one bit. And today, I went to begin to tidy up the mess that is my wardrobe; as I seem to be entirely incapable of keeping it tidy on a regular basis, I have to go for the blitz-tidy approach every few months, as documented here. According to this post from 4 months ago, there seems to be a direct correlation between my attitude towards my clothes and the organisational state of my wardrobe. But I don't think that's the problem this time. I think that I am just moving too much into no-style-land. That doesn't mean tracksuits and wolf fleeces and Crocs; that would be bad style. No, what I am referring to is a shift towards the non-descript basic cardigan, the block colour t-shirt, the jeans. Now I know that is a look which some people can rock, but I am not one of them.

So that is two things so far which I have addressed in this post: hair and t-shirts. The first one I have already addressed, and the second I will now, as I am going to not only tidy my wardrobe but have a mini-clearout, throwing out the most offensively inoffensive tees.

But (and I fully realise how awfully over-dramatic this sounds) that is only the beginning of my attempt to reverse the effects of my style shift, or at least shift the shift in a direction which I feel happier with. Still, I doubt many of you are still reading (and those of you who are, well done!) and I haven't yet fully formulated part III of my plan.

So I am going to label this post as posting in parts, and promise you that I will be back, to write the 2nd post, and to my stylish self.